Who is Unai Emery?

Born in Hondarribia, Spain, on November 3 1971, Emery has had a career as both a player and a manager. The 46-year-old has built up a reputation for winning trophies, counter-attacking play and improving his sides' domestic success.

Playing career

Emery began his playing career at Real Sociedad youth team and in 1990 the Spaniard made his professional debut for Sociedad's B team.

Emery would later join Toledo, Racing Ferrol, and Leganes before retiring at Lorca Deportiva in 2004. Emery played as a left-sided midfielder making 339 career appearances scoring 18 goals in his 14 years as a player.

Despite beginning his career at Sociedad, Emery failed to break into the first-team, playing only five matches, with the Spanish midfielder spending the majority of his career playing in Spain's second tier.

Having retired from professional football in 2004 following a knee injury while playing for Lorca, Emery was offered a vacant managerial role the next season.

Managerial career

In his first season Emery led Lorca to promotion, entering the second tier of Spanish football.

Emery's stay at Lorca was brief as the next season he joined Almeria and once again achieved promotion, this time to the top flight, La Liga and achieved eighth place finish the following year.

Emery's next destination was Valencia where he would stay at the club for four seasons guiding them to two top-three finishes.

In 2012 he moved away from Spanish football for the first time in his career joining Russian club Spartak Moscow where he would spend just three months before being sacked following a poor run of results.

Emery would soon return to La Liga with Sevilla in January 2013. In three seasons Emery achieved a trio of Europa Leagues and one Copa Del Rey final, which his side lost 2-0 to Barcelona.

Emery departed Sevilla in June 2016, joining French giants Paris Saint-Germain. After two years in charge Emery achieved one Ligue 1 title and four domestic cups – with this season ending in a domestic treble.

Managerial style

Often favouring a 4-2-3-1 or 4-3-3 formation, Emery made a name for himself in the Spanish leagues through ordering his players to defend high and force pressure in their opponents' half, while his team executed counter-attacks when on the offence.

This approach was out of sync at PSG, with his high calibre players opting to play a slightly more sophisticated quick passing game relying also on the attacking presence of Edinson Cavani, and more recently world-record signing Neymar and youngster Kylian Mbappe.

Why did he leave PSG?

After replacing Laurent Blanc, who was sacked in 2016, Emery would soon find out his Qatar Sports Investments owners had strong intentions of winning the Champions League.

Like fellow billionaire football owner Roman Abramovich, Emery's Qatari owners would put a lot of onus their manager achieving Champions League success.

Pressure mounted on him after failing to reach the quarter-finals last season, squandering a 4-0 advantage to Barcelona by losing the return leg 6-1 away.

This year he bowed out again in the last 16, this time to Real Madrid losing 5-2 on aggregate.

With no official word on the exact reason Emery left the French club, and only offering a thank you to president Nasser Al Khelaifi, the director of sport Antero Henrique, the supporters and his players, it was assumed Champions League failure was responsible.